The Washington Post has a story about a very troubling situation in Maryland involving out-of-control police and Anthony Graber, a man who happened to film his police encounter.  A 25 year old Air National Guard Staff Sargent was riding his motorcycle north of Baltimore on Interstate 95 with a helmet cam, a video camera on the top of his helmet.  He routinely filmed his travels.  Suddenly from out of nowhere a gray unmarked car pulled in front of him and forced him to stop.

A man wearing a gray pull over and jeans got out of the sedan with a gun at Graber and ordered him to dismount from the motorcycle.  He then said he was a Maryland State Trooper.  The cop gave Graber a speeding ticket, which Graber does not contest.  A week later Graber posted the video on YouTube and the Gestapo Maryland State Police and prosecutors went legally berserk.  Twenty-eight days later while Graber, his wife and kids and parents were sleeping six Gestapo police thugs entered their home and arrested Graber for violating Maryland’s wiretap law that Maryland police and prosecutors say happens whenever somebody films a Maryland cop without the cop’s permission.

From the Washington Post story:

“The case has ignited a debate over whether police are twisting a decades-old statute intended to protect people from government intrusions of privacy to, instead, keep residents from recording police activity. . . . During a 90-minute search of Graber’s parents’ home, police confiscated four computers, the camera, external hard drives and thumb drives.”

Update:  “Charges dismissed against Md. man who taped traffic stop.”